> A person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.
Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute.
> While a bigger garden and spare bedroom soon cease to be novel, every day’s commute is a little bit different, meaning we can never get quite used to it.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.
> Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute.
As I understand, there’s heavy resistance to building any sort of density in Palo Alto. That will, of course, skew the cost of living. I believe that people are constantly priced out of the city as well (i.e. they wanted to stay but couldn’t).
> I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.
The American perception toward public transit is that it is unreliable, crowded, dirty and/or filled with poor people. Knowing that there will be a seat on a clean bus to take you home without much worry is a major sell and can convince people to ditch their cars (whether or not the equivalent public transit commute actually matches the above perception).
When I was in a situation where I could take the “tech buses” regularly, they for sure helped make a long commute bearable.
I worked in Menlo Park and commuted from Castro Valley. It was 40 minutes average each way, but I could afford a house and traffic wasn't nearly as bad by me as it was over there.
Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute.
> While a bigger garden and spare bedroom soon cease to be novel, every day’s commute is a little bit different, meaning we can never get quite used to it.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.